In Response To: Living Dead needs to be revived. *Long* (NsU Soldier)
: I Love Infection. I Can’t Stand Living Dead.
: I want to start off by saying that Infection is an amazing game type. I’ve
: played countless matches of it since Halo 2, and have loved every second
: of it. The moments of feeling your impending doom as a Human, or the
: frenzied mindset of being a Zombie were so very unique to these games.
: But, unfortunately, the games of Infection I’m referring to were all either
: custom games or H3 matchmaking games. Reach’s Living Dead playlist is a
: hollow shell of the Infection experience.
: Living Dead seems like it was barely playtested at all. The problems are
: numerous and varied, ranging from the somewhat obscure to the glaringly
: obvious, and many of them have been there since Reach’s launch.
: Why the Wall of Text?
: It’s simple. I have felt a rising frustration after each foray into the
: playlist.
: Rampant camping, broken maps, messed up game types, this is not the Infection
: I know and love. Yet after a while, I always end up going back (usually
: after a playlist update) and desperately hope that many of the major
: problems were addressed. Each and every time I am dumbstruck with how
: awful it still is, and how many problems are STILL THERE.
: I want to enjoy this playlist so badly, but I cannot. I’m at the point where
: I can no longer go into that playlist and have fun. I now feel obligated
: to bring up my many concerns with the playlist, before I abandon it for
: good.
: Alright, let’s get started. (For brevity’s sake, I’ve narrowed it down to the
: four biggest problems.)
: The Big Four
: Problem One - The 'base experience' of Living Dead is off. Waaaay off.
: The Zombies should always have the advantage over the Humans. Period. This
: makes for games that don’t last forever and stagnate, and tend to keep the
: gameplay interesting and tense. It also encourages teamwork on both sides,
: and leads to less frustrating games. This needs to be the golden rule of
: any Infection game type.
: Reach, however, does the exact opposite.
: It gives advantage after advantage to the Humans. Maps with long lines of
: sight (and loads of ‘fortresses’), lots of ammo for Reach’s beast of a
: pistol, few starting Zombies, motion tracker for the Humans, and sword
: block to name a few. Oh yeah, and the Humans have RANGED WEAPONS and can
: keep killing the same guy over and over again. Those should be the only
: advantages that they have, as they're huge ones.
: This has produced matches that usually end up with a Zombie massacre. Great
: news if you’re a Human, not so much if you’re a Zombie. In fact, if you’re
: a Zombie just be prepared to be farmed for kills over and over again.
: Problem Two - An inconsistent split of the action.
: There are three rounds. You can spawn as one side all three rounds. Are you
: kidding me?
: Have you ever spawned as Cannon Fodde-, er, I mean, a Zombie three times in a
: row? Six times? More? If you haven’t let me tell you, it’s hell . Pure
: and simple.
: Here are some good examples on how to fix this: * For standard Infection
: games (which should have 50% of the players spawning as Zombies) there
: needs to be an even number of rounds. Four seems ideal as two is far too
: short. Each player should start on either side an even amount of times in
: one game.
: * For Alpha Zombies variants (25% of the players spawning as powerful Alpha
: Zombies) have each person spawn as an alpha Zombie only once per game.
: Again this is assuming that there are four rounds.
: Problem Three - The maps. Oh God, the maps.
: Every map that I have come across in Living Dead has at least one critical
: flaw. And by ‘critical flaw’ I mean ‘fortress’. Combine that with the
: Human’s motion tracker, and things become a camper’s paradise. It is good
: to give Humans some good defensible zones (usually a room, short hallway,
: or cover laden field), but said defenses should never be nigh impregnable.
: As a rule of thumb each ‘defensible zone’ should have at least two easily
: accessible ways to get inside it (bonus points for less ways out). This is
: to allow ease of access for the Zombies. And when I said, ‘easily
: accessible ways to get inside’ I meant for the Zombies. Remember, you’re
: trying to favor them, and the biggest way to do this is with the terrain.
: Ideally, even the ‘defensible zones’ should be Human death traps waiting
: to happen.
: And if you absolutely have to have a hallway with one entrance be sure to
: keep it short (with poor sight lines) to prevent tons of humans crowding
: inside.
: *Cough* Swordbase Red Lift Room*Cough*
: Problem Four – Provide support for the dang thing.
: One of the biggest sins is without a doubt the lack of love this playlist
: receives. Really bad map breaks and exploits go unchecked for months at a
: time. I now fear that the exploits that still remain will never be fixed.
: The worst part about it is that some of these maps can be (by and large)
: fixed by adding a few soft kills and blocking off some rooms. Work that
: would take around 30 minutes per map to do.
: But there are some maps that are beyond help. *Quickly glances at The Cage
: and Pinnacle*
: Another way to support the Living Dead playlist would be to include Forge
: maps that encourage the type of Infection gameplay I have been talking
: about. (After revamping the matchmaking game types) Hold some contests and
: get a couple of nice, moody Forge maps that work with these new
: Zombie-favoring game types.
: Finale
: So, there you have it. I’m glad I finally got this post out in the open for
: people to see.
: A funny thing happened to me as I was typing this.
: I started daydreaming about what the Living Dead playlist could be. Reach has
: a beautifully smooth engine and a deeply customizable Forge mode. Now with
: 343i rolling out a title update which may add more options to tweak the
: game type itself, Reach has the potential to be the home of the most
: amazing Infection games to date.
: It’s just a shame, a crying shame that, at least for now, we have to settle
: for this…
:
: Thoughts?
Well said, the other thing that bugs me is the lack of gametypes and personality. Used to be themed (even corny) in Halo 3, and it benefited from getting you in the mood to kill zombies. There need to be maps for it that aren't Writer's Mind, I mean actually original intent of Infection should be supported by maps of similar nature. Wish they would make "Class based traits" available in TU, you would be able to make a l4d style zombie gametype.
Lots of potential if the right people can flip the switches and let us in.
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